3.1 Qualitative Research Design
3.1.4 Research Methods
The research questions are related to the decision or set of decisions which were made on different phases in ERP project, as a result, to understand why those decisions were taken and how they were implemented, the most suitable research strategy is case study methodology (Yin, 2003). In addition, ERP critical success factors are the actions which are contemporary events and such events may vary from firm to firm which makes the causal links between the interested situation and its context is too complex to find the answer by using quantitative strategy, therefore case study strategy is the right approach for this research. Moreover, as the events are uncontrollable, conducting an experiment is impossible (Yin, 2003). Last but not least, ERP systems are identified as enterprise-wide systems that not only involved heavily on technological aspect, but also related to changes in social aspect of the firms (Vries & Boonstra, 2012) (Elbanna, 2007), as a result, the only possible source of information is through interview with the persons who were part of such event (Yin, 2003). Therefore, the study is proceeded to collect data from the unit of analysis as described in the following section.
Unit of Analysis
In order to ensure a literal replication and/or theoretical replication (Yin, 2003), interviews are conducted in order to compare multiple case studies within manufacturing industries. To limit the scope the study focuses on the results of ERP on supply chain integration area. The study starts with the interview with 4 ERP experts who have been working with system as either implementors or ERP users for more than 14 years so as to get the definition of ERP success in terms of cross-functional integration.
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Next, ERP implementors and ERP users are invited for individual interview to give the insight on their ERP implementation cases and the implementation result.
The reason of having two groups of participants is to guarantee research reliability and able to apply triangulation (Yin, 2003). Furthermore, to ensure reliability, multiple cases of ERP project implementation are compared and contrasted. The research is covered both success and unsuccessful cases which become very useful for data analysis. In addition, majority of external ERP consultants whom we have interviewed have been working in ERP industry for more than 10 years, therefore they are capable of providing a lot of valuable insight of by comparing factors and result of multiple implementation cases.
Finally, fifty-one interviews from 51individuals were conducted. Twenty- nine companies in 20 various industries were mentioned. In total, the total hours of conversation are around 27.25. The following list are examples of industries that our research participants have been working for or have provided ERP implementation services.
• Agricultural
• Animal Food Manufacturing
• Automotive
• Bathroom Faucet and Chinaware
• Computer data storage
• Cosmetics
• Digital industrial
• Distribution Services
• Energy Management and Automation
• Food and Beverage
• Government
• Hospital
• Jewelry
• Oil & Gas
• Paint and Coating
• Personal Care
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• Project
• Real Estate
• Retail and investment
• Utility
Data Collection Plan
The data is collected through in-depth interview because insightful information is required while the research interests are relatively clear. In addition, the interested events of ERP implementation happened in the past which related to many stakeholders which makes in-depth interview the most suitable technique (Steven J.
Taylor, 1997).
At the beginning of the interview, participants are informed about the interview outline. Interview outline consists of research topic, objectives, methodology, definition of ERP success in terms of cross-functional integration and description of various level of cross-functional integration. See Appendix A. The definition of “cross- functional integration” is gained from the interviews with ERP experts is described in research result chapter. For the characteristics of firm in various level of integration is from literature review. Cross-functional integration level and characteristics of each level are described to ease the participants understanding. In case that the participants have experienced with multiple projects (which usually happened to experienced external consultants), they are be asked to rate each of the firms separately.
Each interview is conducted via telephone call which lasts from 10 mins to more than one hour. Participants are asked to rate their cross-functional integration level they have observed or experienced as referring to such implementation. The interviews are conducted in semi-structured manner. Interview questions are grouped to be appropriate for interviewees’ background on ERP system. In general, ERP consultants are asked to compare and contrast companies which they think is the most and the worst successful in terms of enhancing cross-functional integration. For ERP users are asked to rate their companies cross-functional integration levels before and after implementation and what do they think are the factors contributed to such level. They also asked how implementation was done.
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To ensure internal validity, at the end of the interview, interviewer repeats what information has been learned from the participants and also send the field notes back to participants for their revision in order to guarantee Respondent Validation such that misconception and own prejudices could be avoided (Maxwell, 2005; Yin, 2003).
Further, the external validity is implemented through the comparison of analysed content between cases. In this paper, data between cases is coded and compared in order to find patterns (Maxwell, 2005). List of other examples of interview questions are in Appendix B in which the questions are asked by theme of “System Environment”
Data Analysis
During interview field notes are made and after that the interview records are transcript as text. Field notes and transcripts are reread so as to generate codes. After several interviews, codes are grouped and labeled gradually interview by interview.
Codes are categorized into themes and then sub-themes are identified.
Then relationship between theme and sub-themes are identified. After around the 30th interview, patterns and relationship are started to be discovered. Once the patterns are guaranteed by the remaining 20 interviews, the study is considered to be complete. Access to multiple participants per one case, both from ERP user and ERP consultants, is possible so as to ensure the application of triangulation (Berg, 2006;
Bryman, 2012).
The following chapter is described the research findings.
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CHAPTER IV RESEARCH RESULTS
To the best of our knowledge, existing literatures have never explicitly defined the meaning of ERP success in terms of cross-functional integration. Therefore, this study begins with the exploration of the definition of ERP success in terms of cross- functional integration. The detail of the definition is described in section 4.1
In addition, list of critical success factors is gathered and ranked as shown in Table 4.1. Terms and phrases are grouped into each critical success factor. The terms and phrases could be either positive or negative depending on whether participants referred to successful or unsuccessful cases. Frequency is captured from how often the relevant terms and phrases are mentioned during the interviews. The highest rank is given to the most frequently mentioned factor that positively resulted in higher cross- functional integration.
‘Change agent’ is ranked as the first factor that bring about cross- functional integration enhancement. Therefore, the focus into the detail of this success factor is proceeded. It answers the research question on why some ERP user organizations are successful in promoting cross-functional integration, while the others are not. The study discovers that the most powerful factor that differentiate successful to unsuccessful firms is ‘change agents’. In other words, ‘change agents’ are the key drivers that differentiate level of ERP success on unifying firms’ departments.
Further detail on the discovery and common characteristics of change agents are proposed in section 4.3. Section 4.4 describes how firms practically apply the two empowering factors to strengthen change agent capability and accelerate the outcome of integrated organizations. Last but not least, in section 4.5, the study explains the finding of sustainability factors that help firm sustain or even improve their high level of cross-functional integration through ERP usage. The research findings could be depicted as in Figure 4.1.
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Figure 4.1 Finding Results of the Qualitative Analysis
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